So what exactly is matter with your brain, then?

Brain Shit

Mild reduced metabolic activity in parietal lobes bilaterally and prominent reduction in corpus callosum and anterior cingulate gyrus region bilaterally.

That's what the CT scan results said in October 2024. So as I never had a follow-up consultation, I went online for Google's AI to interpret it into some basic English I might understand.

I like colouring in cauliflowers. Do you?

The Corpus callosum is right at the base of the brain and it connects the two hemispheres. In my case it's atrophied, which means reduced comms between the 2 halves.

So what are the implications of that? 

Reduced cognitive and motor skills. Coordination and so forth between right and left hands for instance. 

Bad luck if you're a musician.

Well the coordination and balance was always shit, but I can type, and yes sir, I can boogie. So not much change there.

But the other symptoms include reduced executive functions (such as wanting to get up and do shit) and language processing and attention, the latter of which was always a D-.

The parietal lobes are processing sensory information, particularly related to touch, temperature, pain, and spatial awareness. They also play a role in language, attention, and certain aspects of memory.

This is why reading and assimilating received information is ever more difficult.

It's a double-whammy to the grey matter!

Cuppa-tea, cuppa-tea, cuppa-tea please

I go to Niche every day except Tuesdays when they’re closed.

It's very nice there. I can watch the madness unfold all around me, but I often have my headphones on and read or type or watch YouTube on my iPad.

They look after me in there.

Watching the cardigans go by.  

That's the second wheelchair-user in a row with a yellow cardigan - a particularly egregious one with silver Buitoni. 

Ghastly.

One day I'll be in a wheelchair but I won't be wearing a cardigan.

I'm very sensitive like that.

Give me worms

Smiling at every dog I see. 

I love animals more and more every day. 

I like the bitey insects and the hideous worms that live in the ocean. 

As an (honorary) member of the human race I feel a level of personal responsibility for the extinction of all these wonderful mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, not to mention all the invertebrates we killed with DTT and the other pesticides and our obsession with fossil fuels.

Where ever humans turned up large fauna disappeared. The Moa of New Zealand, the various large marsupials in Australasia; wolves and bears in Europe. 

God we're awful.

At the moment I am particularly fond of arachnids and cephalopods. 

The interdependency of it all. 

A single tree has thousands of species depending on it for survival. A single oak can support 2300 species with 300 being entirely dependant on it.

And new discoveries are revealing even the tiniest animals have sentience in some form.

Many people still don’t get it as they worship the accrual of money at the expense of everything that is good, believing the fallacy that it will bring them the happiness they crave.

Puppet Master

I remember a very pretty blonde woman called Shari Lewis in the early 70s, wearing an Alice band with a sock-puppet. 

The daughter of academics who taught at the Yeshiva University, she was extraordinarily talented, could sing and dance, wrote several children’s books and even one episode of the original Star Trek series.

However, she is most remembered for her puppet Lamp Chop, and being probably the best ventriloquist ever. 

Lamb Chop had a very distinct personality based on a 7 year old girl, and Shari put a ton of personality into her movements and facial expression.

We’re talking about a sock puppet here. 

I didn’t appreciate how clever and well observed Lamb Chop was at the time. But I’ve since re-watched her - or rather them - and they were a class act.

Mandy Patenkin 

This is one of the most powerful speeches on Gaza I’ve heard. It’s 2 1/2 minutes long and his speech is in the last half.

Quote of the week

'Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talked nice then bombs everyone in the evening.'

DJ Trump (historical figure).

Vote Wilbur!

 Wilbur - a Eulogy

I called J as I was passing the house. That happy/sad feeling of nostalgia. 

Like listening to an Abba song.

Wilbur ran out to see me, falling base over apex, but he recognised me instantly. I think we were both in shock at seeing each other again.

I was once contemplating setting up a website called Wilbur’s Shits, which rather like those swatches of marbles and granites would show the subtleties and differences from say yellow ochre to jet black with carrots in. 

I never did it of course but now I’ve given you the idea, haven’t I?

I’m good at that. Many of Rob Porteous’s commercials were my ideas.

I never did get that pint, Rob…

ROB!?

Anyway,  Wilbur was a year old when I met him. I didn't like him at first. He used to sleep on the bed, and I would shoo him off. He would try and eat everything. He would have these frond like hairs over his face that used to drive me nuts. 

I just thought it was slovenly.

Always one for the underdog, was Wilbur.

Over time, I gave up and actively encouraged him to sleep on our bed, made canapés for him, introduced him to the finest cheeses in the world, took him to D&D sessions, and shared bananas and other exotic foodstuffs with him. 

He rarely moved, choosing to teleport instead with pizza in his gob, out to the garden to munch it.

He would growl if you came near him - only when he got older.

I used to say he was the only one who was pleased to see me when I got home from work.

He came on games holiday with me. It all went wrong when he discovered the compost patch on the farm we were staying and after gorging himself on rotten apples barfed it all up at 2am in my room.

He was a puker and a shitter; that much is true.

In fact he was obsessed with food. Like a lot of show-cockers, he possessed an under-active thyroid and by the end was blind with cataracts, deaf, senile and had had some strokes.

I ended up loving Wilbur, and it was great to see him just before he shook off this mortal bone.

Dogs are just great. 

We see in them the kindness, honesty and unconditional love we wish we possessed as humans.

US Election and what now?

Some people don’t understand how you can get so embroiled in US politics when you don’t live there. 

I’d say the repercussions on the geo-politics of the world are going to be felt by everyone. 

Trump's policy of isolationism is going to affect the war in Ukraine, the world’s economies, Europe, the balance of power with India, China and Russia, not to mention Taiwan…

The tariffs alone will affect our GDP and growth. and Europe's even more.

(As an aside there has been a spike in search terms on Google for "What is a tariff?" and "Are tariffs good?" in swing states, after the election...)

Just watching the election post-mortems on YouTube, TV and in the paper. I know I know - these are ancient monoliths people have no time for anymore. 

Frank Zappa said American culture can be summed up in ‘what’s the bottom line?’ I recognise people hadn’t felt Biden’s policies had improved their cost of living, and the Democrats were talking or accused of being obsessed with identity politics. 

However, the economy is booming, more jobs have been created than in decades, people are - despite the prevailing zeitgeist - improving their standard of living. And yet and yet...

"They're poisoning the blood of our country."

"They're eating the dogs and cats; people's pets."

Blaming poor people and immigrants, the traditional methods of the far right.

Zappa also warned of America turning into a fascist theocracy in time, which most people of course ignored. 

Check out a guy called Doug Coe and an institution called “The Fellowship”. A covert organisation whose intention was to make Christianity at the heart of US politics, despite the Founding Fathers writing a deliberately secular constitution. 

You can see it all starting in the 80s with the Reagans. 

By the way, it’s intentionally non-publicity seeking.

So back to 2024, the Democrats went knocking door-to-door, but the data they were using wasn’t effective in targeting the people Trump’s team had already got through to using digital media.

What the electorate heard were (justifiable) attacks on Trump’s character rather than what would benefit them.

Democrats laughing at people who are clearly dumb and ignorant (MAGA) who don’t agree with you, didn’t help. 

It’s easy to see 5 minutes after the event some of what went wrong..

As Vlad Vexler pointed out, we live in a world of Post-Truth, authoritarian populists who disguise themselves in traditionally Conservative clothing.

They communicate disinformation repeatedly in 5-10 second bites on TikTok. No time for reasoned discussion. No time for journalism. 

Fox News, Rumble; 18 of the top 20 political podcasts are MAGA-supporting. The left or centre are losing the information war.

40 ex-high profile employees of Trump's previous administration have been vocal in their condemnation of Trump saying he is a fascist and utterly unsuited for the position of POTUS.  

Can you name any other president whose previous employees have done that?

What’s so good about democracy anyway?

I thought the whole point of modern democracy was we could get these guys out after 4/5 years get our guys in, and the whole system balances itself out over time.

That will not be the case anymore in many countries. Hungary and Turkey spring to mind immediately. 

In the 90s, after Apartheid and the Soviet Union had fallen, the world felt genuinely good. There was a visceral optimism about where the world was and where it was heading.

How naive we were!

Of course, it proved to be just a blip.

Move forward to 2024 

"Don't bring politics into this!"

Well, I will if you mention Christian nationalists in an anodyne context when they are in fact rather unpleasant people.

Maybe you could learn something by what I'm telling you rather than shoot it down in flames? After all in the 80s during Apartheid, people said the same thing.

"Politics shouldn't come into sport!"

Say that to black athletes not allowed to take part in the Olympics, rugby or cricket because of their skin colour.

Have we all forgotten this or are we simply unaware or uninterested in our most recent past?

When one is tired of Gurn', one is tired of life...

Well, Wells actually, but Gurn’ sounds better.

Jesus it’s small. I haven’t really established the social life I wanted here. Evenings spent inside, drinking, playing on the computer. Not ideal. 

Wandering up and down the barren streets, with the exception of market days when it's joyously bustling, 

An astonishingly acute case of gonorrhoea...

The people I know have busy lives and why should I expect them to make an effort when I haven’t with them prior to living here?

Cue trips away visiting friends. More reading and watching of substantial things. I no longer watch TV other than the news, partly because if something doesn’t grab me entirely - and I’m prepared to watch a couple of episodes - I’m going to drop it. 

I feel the content of most dramas is so lazy or algorhythmical that they just don’t merit watching.

"Oo, let's see how many willies we can get into this programme!" seems to be the remit for most programming.

And Michael Macintyre and Simon Cowell and their ilk must die. 

Trumpian I know...

 Of course, I should be more gregarious but what with the executive functions almost always offline, it’s difficult.  

Bath beckons. So even does Glastonbury, if only - like Camden Market - to remind myself why I haven’t been there for years, and therefore prevent any more silly deluded thoughts for another few years.

Sexy dementia talk

My brain is stuck

Going to London to partake of nooclear medicines and MFI scans, the machines of which are operated by Doozers. 

I was trying to get a decent clip of Doozers, who are these tiny green people who are construction workers on Fraggle Rock who make buildings that the Fraggles eat, but all I could get was the musical numbers. Then I found this!

Suffice to say, the experience is akin to being rolled into a sarcophagus - with your head clamped still - often with gently appalling music playing (usually from Heart FM) and a lot of whirring, clanking, beeping and screeching noises. 

I think they put those in on purpose to make it sound more sci-fi.

It’s not that unpleasant; rather, slightly surreal.

As I type this, the cacophony of zero-boundary children in this beer garden is almost overwhelming. 

I blame their parents, who are - technically - cxxts.

Games stuff

I’ve been playing a 13 year old computer game called Skyrim, which was when it came out - a game-changer. Unfortunately the company who produced it then went into MMORPGs (online games with lots of other players) and the experience of those games was crap. 

Yes! Let’s exploit the brand!

They’ve since destroyed the Fallout franchise, and they are yet to follow up with a sequel to Skyrim.

13 years and waiting…

So I’m playing the game and enjoying it, but the same glitches in the program still exist. Chests swallowing your loot, NPCs floating in mid-air, and other nonsense.

It’s evident the company doesn’t care one iota about its undeservingly loyal fanbase.

I think I may just go back to books. It’s healthier anyway.

Autumn

It’s mid Autumn. I love the colours of the leaves, the cool weather; appreciate the shorter days and golden light, the anticipation of Christmas and the cosiness of dark evenings and log fires, with the smell of burning and the streaming of eyes. 

The leaves are yellow ochre and burnt umber, with a few reluctant deciduous examples holding out for the inevitable.

Talking today about Glüwein and mulled cider - those steaming hot drinks with cloves and cinnamon we drink while cupping the glass or mug with our fingerless mittens. Yum!

But we have had Xmas fare in the supermarkets since late summer. Come the New Year and Easter Eggs will be in the shops. 

He’s only just been birthed and they’re rolling the boulder away for his resurrection!

Similarly, no Guy Fawkes anymore, and that American festival of Halloween lasts for 6 weeks.

What's the world coming to when you can't even burn a Catholic once a year now for all the bloody trick or treaters?

If Thomas Carlyle had been alive today he would be burning down the supermarket aisles.

That London

Took the coach up to that London on Sunday morning. Walked past the old house in Kingston getting that happy/sad vibe. I called J to say I was outside and she said come on in.

Wilbur ran out to see me. He’s blind and deaf but gloriously fluffy and he knew me instantly as I haven't washed - as a protest - since I last saw him. He jumped up at me. It was lovely. 

We went through a lot, he and I. Gaming holidays, hundreds of hours sharing the same bed, walks, treats - especially cheese - like Wallace and Gromit, we were.

J and I had a lovely chat. Stanley was cool with me - he always has been, but I love him. 

I...love...dogs!!!

It was lovely seeing J too. We hadn't seen each other in person for a year. Time is....healing. 

The process continues.

I met Larry and Adrian and Chris at the Willoughby and we played some D&D using the 2024 rules which have just come out.

I stayed at my friend's in Wimbledon and had a second sleepless night. Why was I so stressed? It made no logical sense. I guess I was terrified of missing my appointments. 

I could feel it in my body but my brain was oblivious of the reason(s) thanks to good old Sertraline.

7.45: MRI at Queen Square was easy - nice lady called Mary looked after me, then I wandered around Bloomsbury and Soho in the grey London light. 

Wandering for ages in fact, conscious that I couldn't go to Ole and Stein for a cinnamon bun. 

Bought 2 pairs of jeans out of necessity, served by a stoned, and initially belligerent young man in Soho who warmed up through the transaction process. 

Just as well as another 2 pairs have exploded overnight.

I had to fast for 6 hours for the PET scan so I last ate at 7.30 am: half bottle of Huel which tasted disgusting and a flat white that was an offence against the Trades Description Act, and a snip at £4. My stress had made eating very difficult.

Fashion: baggy this, baggy that. Joe Bloggs-style jeans, sweaters, cardigans. It’s almost anti-fashion. Dressing for comfort?? What has become of london. I leave it for just a year and it’s already gone to the dogs. This is what they wear in Coxley. 

And soooo many quilted jackets! I tried one on but I looked like a child had coloured in a Michelin Man.

PET scan: lie down, put on eye mask to block out lights, needle in arm, cute nurse comes back and then puts the nuclear medicine in me. Wait another 25 minutes, then go to the PET scanner itself which only covers the head. I was only in it for 15 minutes. 

Done!

I wandered for an hour - having gone past the phase of hunger - knowing I needed a feast. Found one of those French bistros that cater for the theatre crowds. They’re normally very passable. Wolfed a burger and frites down, along with a very nice Meteor IPA. 

Then I went back to Hammersmith, went in 3 dodgy pubs. Last one had lots of ugly old people in heavy metal t-shirts. Must have been some concert or other on, or a heavy metallurgy expo nearby. 

Coach journey was easy - none of the charging ports worked of course.

Nerys was there to drive me home.

And...rest.

Dementia Philosophy Post

Epicurus or Zeno?

I was never interested at all in Biology or Chemistry, but I loved Physics. When I did Julius Caesar for O-Level English Literature I looked into Brutus and Cassius's philosophers of choice: Zeno the stoic for Brutus and Epicurus for Cassius.

In short, stoicism is living a life of virtue accordance with nature, where calm reasoning supersedes emotion.

Epicureanism is about living life to its pleasure without resort to Hedonism. It was a version of  Zen in its own way - you wanted peace, pleasure in small things and no excess in materialism or emotion.

Sound quite similar, but they became opposites.

To me reading up on these guys was a revelation, and much more interesting than the text was then to a 15 year old boy who liked looking out of the window.

Physics and philosophy - the subjects of dreamers. Now that would have been a curriculum I could have got behind.

In the end art and history for A-Levels.

When I retrained I chose stonemasonry but in retrospect I should have been a field archeologist.

Hindsite is a bastard.

Morning Walks

I love walking Tomos. He's such a happy dog. He wants to meet everyone and say hello. 

Today we stopped by the moat and saw the cygnets who are now growing up and are half the size of their parents but still with the grey plumage.

We also saw tiny baby moorhens! 

I love their feet too.

They were the size of a goose egg each, with black fluff and bright red beaks. There must have been 8 of them. They were so tiny they would alternate between paddling and then walking on the pondweed. Like Rallycross, but for wildfowl.

Tomos is always looking to run and play with other dogs. Some dog owners are very nervous, and unsurprisingly their dogs become nervous wrecks too. Dogs are social animals and the majority of the dogs we let off in the field by the moat and they run and play bitey-face for as long as they can. Tomos being of great working stock can go on all day.

Elmer Tomos

I hate getting out of bed but I really enjoy walking Tomos and meeting the other dog walkers. Yin and Yang, eh? 

Or to put it another way, bloody 'dualistic world shit', to quote the great thinkers Derek and Clive.

Gaming Bit

Back playing Baldur's Gate 3 on the computer.

Rosie is my little halfling (Hobbit) bard. She's leading the merry band of misfits through the Sword Coast and into the Underdark. She's 3 foot high with red hair, facial tattoos and piercings. She's already slept with 2 of her party. I think she'll have all of them by the end of this adventure. 

It's good fun running through this again. It beats endlessly pouring over my D&D adventure book waiting for the information to absorb into my brain. 

There are so many variables involved in this game - almost impossible to have the exact same experience twice.

You see I can feel my interest in tabletop D&D waining. I've had this before a few years ago and then it came back with a vengeance, so hopefully that will be the case now.

Maybe I'm no longer able to make new memories, which is why when Dungeon Mastering older adventures I've run before it's easier. I'm hoping that this adventure just happens to be an anomaly and that I'll be back in the thick of things, living and breathing the adventure we're playing at any one time and able to run it like I used to, acting out the characters, doing their voices and describing the story in rich detail with all the atmosphere intended.

If not then there's nothing I can do anyway, and I'll have to move on and find something else. I still enjoy playing, which is much easier to do. 

That's where the stoicism comes in.

Hives

This is a recent thing. I thought they were bedbugs or cat fleas initially, but they're either an allergy or a response to stress. 

Being on Sertraline I'm never that conscious of being stressed, but J and I are going through the divorce proceedings and she's been really good with me. It will all work out for the best. However, the process is not unstressful.

The hives may be an allergic reaction to soft fruit. I'm eating a lot of strawberries at the moment.

In fact, the timing is so apt me being here for my parents as both can't move very far and rely on me to do the shopping, ferry them to and from medical establishments and do other stuff for them. 

Is this part of a cosmic plan? Is everything settling in place as part of the grand narrative?

Bollocks it is.

Anyway, my brain hurts now.

“Rambling, ill-thought out and vague.” (Mr Owen, 1984)

Walking the dog

Turn up to meet my dog-friend Tomos. Oscar the human is there too. Lovely chap. The three of us walk up the High Street.

Just Tomos and I now. It makes me happy watching him making his own amusement as he races around the field without any other dogs. Just running makes him happy. I can identify with that.

I love how simple the pleasures in life can be.

I can see PsychoBeth, Jimmy's ex-girlfriend, in the distance. She doesn't recognise me: a blessing.

Last time I saw her was 14 years ago at a party in London, shielding Jimmy from anyone and everyone. 

“Hello.” I say, as I do to every other dog-walker.

She smiles suspiciously, guardedly, at me. I can see in her eyes she doesn’t recognise me - this is just how she is with people in general.

It's nice to be anonymous to certain people. That's what I liked so much about living in London: just leave me alone unless I want you to know me.

"I rarely forget a face. But in your case I'll make an exception." (Marx G.).

The older woman in the tight jeans is with the dog walker who can’t stop talking in case she dies. She speaks at that pitch which makes the bones in my ears rattle and my brain wobble, like a jelly when the Klingons have hit the starboard bow.

At least Enzo is there with Stuart’s boss. Tomos and Enzo take turns running after each other nipping each others’ bums until we decide it may be getting out of hand. 

Like toddlers they are: play until they go too far and it all ends in tears.

Moistness 

And not in a good way.

Quiet Wells is (Yoda syntax). 

Perpetual gloom and rain. 

That is the extremely dull story of 2024.

I'm just going to have to murder someone. Maybe a sacrifice will improve the weather.

‘You never know!’ (My Mum - every year, ever.)

John Barleycorn…anyone seen him?

Dungeons and Dragons Update

Lots of magic markers to make maps and play. Spent a small fortune on the things. They’re not actually THE Magic Markers, but alcohol-based markers by Winsor and Newton.

One set has beautiful brush tips. They are great for drawing the cracks in paving slabs.

I feel I have to make an effort for the best experience or I’m just cheating myself through my own laziness. It makes me feel ‘armed’ for want of a better word, for the next session.

Cog rooms which change configuration

The gaming table last Sunday

Ready for the Boss Fight!

The Boss Fight!

Amazing Sunday session. BUT, I did notice my attitude was getting rather bad. Increasingly impatient because I knew the answers and they didn't - bordering on rude/aggressive. 

I want my condition to stabilise and upping my dose of Sertraline from 100mgs is not what I want - just psychologically. Sertraline maxes at 200mgs, so what's after that? I guess tranquillisers. But I don't know. And what effect will they have on me?

Thursday evening’s big boss fight - things were so complicated with high-level action, controlling multiple non-playing characters (NPCs) and multiple spell effects, area effects, reactions, bonus actions, extra-planar shit… I/we managed to get through it. 

Boy it was stressful at times and I had to take some deep breaths to keep my calm and focus. It was hard to run abut then again would have been for most DMs. 

I came back and had a couple of beers while I decompressed.

I do wish at times like this the players would KNOW THEIR SPELLS! 

Until then, there there, and take ∞D6 damage in a 500’ radius. 

After this one I have a new campaign to get my head round. I also have to prep the 2 day session in Pilton for the same kids I DM’d for at half-term. 

Oh well, it keeps me on my toes.

It’s just getting more difficult to organise my thoughts and ideas into something coherent. My brain has a decreasing amount of clarity.

Pint of sertraline, love.

I phoned the Health Centre and can't even get a phone call with the doctor to up my prescription of my anti-psychotic drugs until 10th April.  

I guess I could just take an extra one to up it from 100mgs to 150.

Too many people and too few doctors. 

So I'm back drinking again. It's not good. It’s not terrible either. All or nothing me. 2 bottles of beer every evening.

I have an issue with alcohol. 

Actually I did have a herbal tea night on Wednesday. 

So that’s cured it!

This:

Literature innit?

Have you seen the word ‘Betterer” being used in print recently? I have. 

“If I was betterer at everything I'd be a Brilliant.” (Me, just now.)

Despite spell-checkers, grammar-checkers and presumably punctuation-checkers, people are increasingly illiterate.

And innumerate.

Btw, the title of this blogpost comes from an English essay (think I got a D- back in an age when A*s weren’t mandatory) in Mr Owen’s class. Nice guy. But thanks to him we all ended up writing essays in the style of a schmaltzy Dylan Thomas. 

Bad habit to get into.

And as it happened very difficult to get out of.

I just wanted to write stories but we were told we had to do descriptive essays about smells and tastes in cathedrals. 

Well how fucking boring to an imaginative 12 year old!

That put paid to my interest in English as a subject, until maybe my 20s. 

A friend of mine introduced me to Martin Amis, Bukowski, Henry Miller, Philip Roth and The Beats. I’d read Fear and Loathing and The Dice Man before but this was a renaissance in what literature could be; for me, at least.

I’ve tried dipping back into more modern stuff. E Annie Proux’s ‘Shipping News’ is an astonishing piece of literature, but the Time Traveller’s Wife, The Beach and Cloud Atlas are all SHIT. AI in its current state would produce similar word dysentery.

Nick Hornby? NICK HORNBY???

And I’ll fight anyone who thinks those books were good, with flying headbutts.

I warned you!!

Modern novels: 70 pages each on 5 characters, seemingly unconnected, who you don’t care about and the last 50 pages ties them all up. 

I 

DON’T 

CARE. 

My favourite short story is a 3 page cartoon strip by Alan Moore called ‘The Disturbed Digestions of Doctor Dibworthy.’ Check it out - it’s a piece of genius. It is perfection. A definition of brevity.

Right. I’m off to buy a $60 Trump-endorsed bible.

Demented Ramblings #42

The Geraint Organisation

Now I live in Wells and have a sensible haircut and buy the Daily Express, every thing has to be TIDY.

Everything is pristine in my man-cave. Things live in boxes. I'm like that Japanese lady, only I'm not Japanese or a lady.

I even have plants.

I cleaned the bathrooms, walked Tomos and power-washed the patio at the back, which was filthy and slippery. The broken concrete is now more beautiful than ever. (Photos on request.)

As you know ladies, I'm great with a Karcher. 😉

I'm also taking more care over my appearance. 

Being single again is good. I'm trying my best and feel more autonomous. Rediscovering things - rediscovering me. 

It's not like I didn't have any freedom in my previous chapter; it's just different.

Life's all right. 🙂

I'm a fully-integrated website node

I managed to replace my old stonemasonry website which used my geraintdavies.co.uk URL with this one. More luck than anything. I never understand all those codes and protocols, so I looked things up on the interweb and got so far and thought it hadn't worked. 

A few weeks later I clicked on the geraintdavies.co.uk and I was more surprised than anyone that it forwarded to Dungeon of Dementia!

That's how NASA do it - just bungle through. 

They're a bunch of morons really.

Temperance

I've got more energy from not drinking. But I'm not losing weight at the moment. In fact I feel I've put it on again. Which is odd as I have a Huel drink for lunch, a couple of pieces of fruit, a chocolate biscuit and then a small dinner in the evening.

Anyway, I don't miss the alcohol and still have the odd beer (but 0% alcohol) but fewer. 

I guess it just takes longer to lose weight at 54. 

"Come on stomach flab - disappear!" I shout.

But alas and alack, to little avail...

Boring Dreams

I have a recurring dream about owning a bike and attempting to buy a D-lock for it. Or cycling to the shops and then realising I don't own a D-Iock to secure it so I know it will be nicked.

Stress?

Maybe I should get a bike. Everyone says I should get a car as it will give me more independence and then I could leave Wells whenever I feel like it. 

I dunno. What do you reckon?

Anyway, lots of recycling dreams (HA HA HA HA HA), and then dreams about our neighbour Mrs Holister - from when I was a kid - and her fictitious grandson, Jonathan, who was very proper and grown up, whereas I was an idiot trying to be his friend and not impressing much. 

I was kicking a ball around and he was asking the names of the flowers. Bastard. Swot.

Jonathan looked like an Austin A30, but then again a lot of people back then did.

Jonathan, the boy next door who never existed.

And if you don't believe me, here's Albert Tatlock.

Albert Tatlock

He was from then, you know.

(One of my finest sentences.)

What's Trump said now?

Obsessed with the fucka, though since Carlson's interview and Navalny's death (and I suspect the timing of the 2 are related) I think Trump could be sunk. I'm optimistic.

At this time of writing he's still neck and neck with Biden, perhaps leading by a point. But Nikki Haley would beat Biden by a mile if she was the Republican nominee.

Trump's also had the audacity to compare himself to Navalny. Despicable cxxt.

He's now trying to flog his hideous gold trainers, which he is quite openly saying will increase his appeal to black people, along with his mugshot pic as a lot of black people in America will know what it's like to be as subjugated as our Donnie.

At his fascistic rallies he speaks gibberish off the cuff, and his MAGA cultists lap up whatever he says. 

His whole spiel is a fantasy. Like Johnson there is no delineation between lies or truth - just say whatever is in your interest at that particular moment and they will dutifully applaud.

They simply don't critique anything he says. 

And because of the binary nature of news channels over there once you pick a side there is no alternative to counter with. No benchmark of facts.

Like the medieval peasants following a goose to the Holy Land, they follow him regardless of any reason. 

They are the 21st Century Peasants' Crusade. They live in the Flyover States, in one of the most unequal societies in the world, and a snake-oil salesman has come to deliver them. Many of these people are evangelists and there is a piss-poor standard of education.

I guess it's a lesson in what can happen in a Plutocracy with Universal Suffrage. A neglected portion of society are vulnerable to a narcissistic fascist.

Whataboutery with the Botskis

Crazy dreams about catastrophes, armageddon - must be seeing all the crypto fascists on the internet. With Navalny and the MAGA right embracing Putin and other hideous dictators around the world, it's just giving me a feeling of utter dread for the future.

If you go on The Times site on YouTube the pro-Putin lot are all over the comments, flooding it with lies.

So I come back with some facts, and they say:

What about Shemima Begum then?

What about Iraq?

Ah yes - the whataboutery. That deflecting tactic to answer the question with something that on the face of it sounds similar but is factually different.

Putin actually said Poland started WW2.

Factually rubbish. And he gave Carlson all that bull about the historical reasons why Ukraine belongs to Russia. 

Well, if we go back long enough France belonged to England. 

Post truth innit.

Gaming and death

Running the game a fortnight ago in Pilton for those kids was tiring but not tiresome. Far from it in fact. It was also really nice to be around young people and engage with them.

Doing it at Easter again.

Our Thursday campaign reached a point where 2 - and nearly a third - character died. 

I did warn them that this particular part of the adventure was very hazardous. But still, they put their blinkers on and ran about putting on cursed items, running down staircases to open chests that were obviously there to tempt them, and doing very little observing. 

Oh well, I warned them.

So 2 new characters are miraculously going to join next session. Simon and I are really happy with his character and how integrated it is to the story.

Nearly at the end now - 4 more sessions probably.

Okay. That's me done for another week.

5th dan Stupid

 D.I.Y. O.D.

 I can’t stop! It's like a disease.

Clearing stuff up, painting, sawing, painting again, cleaning, ironing, fixing, drilling, injecting, and buying more stuff. 

Too much stuff: Nerys's window sill replacements.

Then blasting Matt's alley and trimming Kate's bush; that's 2 jobs and a half.

From being almost catatonic in my inactivity I am now so restless I have to tidy or clean everything I see in front of me IMMEDIATELY.

It's driving Mum nuts, not that it affects her. And she wants it done because she can't stand mess. She just hates the thought of any 'upheaval'. 

They're all telling me to pace myself but I'm just on a mission. 

It won't last forever I tell them - just go with it while it's there.

Sorted Dad's music room and storage efforts, cleared the garage of shite, and the lock-up, bought more stuff to decorate, bought a new orthopaedic pillow because of my neck and shoulders aching - it's even affecting my thumbs now! 

Painted the crap half of my man cave and put those shelves up AND made the walls good.

A few plants and some books should do it.

4 or 5 (I forget) car-loads to the tip, and counting.

About to buy plants next. Btw - I have almost zero interior design skills, so I've Ikea'd the shit out of everything and borrowed Jacqui's colour-schemes. Perhaps making a little version of what I left behind in Kingston, possibly as a comfort thing?

I've found getting down to read quite difficult. I've read the paper but not really any of my D&D stuff, which I'm finding a little concerning.

Spammed Twice!

Got spammed the other day. I got a reply from Ted (HIMSELF!) of Nerd Immersion (unsurprisingly a D&D channel on YouTube). It even used his N logo and told me to speak to him on Telegram. So I made an account and he asked me how long I'd been playing, what I liked about his channel and told me I'd won a Sony Playstation. I was elated.

He then showed me some terrible pictures of a Sony Playstation in a carrier bag and said I'd only have to pay 40% of the shipping. 

Ah. I see. 

I sent a message to his actual email account and said I'd done so. He got quite angry with me then and said I'd no longer be receiving the gift and had insulted his generosity. 

It wasn't Ted at all!!!

Funny. But my initial excitement was enough to put my logic circuits offline. He nearly had me too.

I actually love spam. I really do. Here's one I got earlier which I replied to underneath. 

I know, I know; should have been 'shall", not 'will'.

Yes, I am wonderful.

D&D Update

Thursday D&D session was a dud. Katy came in early (for her) and brought an entire 2' square tray of sugary stuff. Caramel, chocolate Wombat poos, and other delights.

So while that was going on they were exploring the dungeon. Someone touched a skull which then animated as the ghost of a jester killed years ago having insulted the King. 

It was immune to virtually anything and DM's are told in the text to role-play it as a major annoyance. Well I ramped that up to 11 and played him in the style of Tony Clifton.

It went down really well (I saw Luke getting annoyed with me) as I insulted all their characters and started singing "I will survive" very loudly.

Then the sugar kicked in and everyone was so loud and laughing non-stop - I had to call a stop at 10pm as it was impossible to run anymore. We had slipped into the realm of Chaos.

So next week is massive: 4 big sessions of Dungeon Mastering and 2 sessions of playing in 5 days! 2 of them are going to be spent on my Wells group and 2 DMing for some teenagers in Pilton Working Men's Club - 2 x 5 hour sessions. 

I had to have a DBS check to make sure I'm not a paedo. Well I'm not. Okay? And the government agrees with me.

'I AIN'T NO PAEDO'. There's a t-shirt that needs printing.

Body Aches

Spine, neck and thumb pain - should get it checked out. Rolling a ball on my back over the knots of muscle by my shoulder blades, lying down on a neck pillow-thing to cure my neck problems, Yoga stretches (just some easy ones) and an orthopaedic pillow on its way. 

On the good side I’m losing weight…but sometimes my stomach seems to inflate. Bought powdered Huel - enough for 2 months. I know that once I stop taking it my weight will come back on a bit, but I drink about 3 of these things a week anyway. Much cheaper to buy the powder and make the drinks myself.

This bloke came up to me...

I was walking the dog (Tomos) the other day, and suddenly I could sense a face looking at me. I turned to look and there's a man almost running along side me staring at me. 

"Did you say something to me back there?"

Okay - he either wants a shag or a fight. And he doesn't look the fighting type. Especially with that idiotic hat.

"No!" I replied, incredulously.

"Oh." 

And off he walked to his silver Toyota Yaris. 

Who does things like that? Obviously he does.

Saw him at Waitrose today. Pointed him out. 

Bloody weirdos.

Project Little Ted

My favourite soft toy was Little Ted. I feel incredibly guilty as - like in Toy Story - I rejected him at a certain age and then he was packed away somewhere.

He was the best of the soft toys I had. I loved him. And I'm actually feeling proper, real, genuine guilt about how I've treated him.

It may be he died of a broken heart or he was given away to someone or thrown out. I need to find him to atone for my awfulness.

I'm going up to the attic now.

Wish me luck.

I was Baron Munchausen's stunt double

Activity

I shook off the dust and got out of my slumber. 

Suddenly I was young again.

Shelves. Put up 5 of the buggers around the house; made the walls good (enough).

Secured a wobbly handrail badly installed by shoddy builders. 

I secured the bracket for Ben's punchbag which had come loose from the wall. 

Cut the grass in the back garden for the first time in 2024.

Cut the grass in the front garden. Got a foul smell on my fingers. Had to use Swarfega, surgical spirit, fairy liquid and a scrubbing brush to get rid of it. Maybe a fox's scent?

Helped a mate move his furniture around.

Ebaying and Facebook-Marketing old stuff.

Got odd-jobs coming up. 

Going to paint my desk wall Radicchio much to my Mother's consternation.

All this activity galvanised me and I felt energised! I worked all day Friday and Saturday. Couldn't stop.

Today I hardly did anything. 

DOGS

That was after walking Tomos of course. I see a nice lady with a tiny dachshund called Snoopy. The way he yips and does a little shimmy when he's bossing her reminds me of Chip. And I've seen 2 Sealyhams in Wells too - obviously I stop and speak to the owners who are surprised I recognise the breed, and I show them photos of little Stanley.

God I miss the dogs.

What I'm watching

I watched programmes on the history of Welsh rugby in the 80s - not a great time, especially after the golden decade that preceded it. Then I watched a Netflix programme on Andy Warhol's diaries. Rather a tragic figure, old Andy.

It was a bit too gay porn, even for me.

Prior to that I'd gorged myself on Giselda on Netflix, which was based on the story of a cocaine crime lord (or rather, lady) of Miami in the late 70s /early 80s. She was so ruthless she eventually controlled the scene in the whole city.

The incredible Sofia Vergara plays the title role. We all know her as a comedy actress, but she is astounding as the ruthless Griselda. 

It's a brutal series but very very good. I wouldn't be surprised if she gets an award for it.

There's nowhere left to go

I don't get out of Wells very much.

I would go to Glastonbury, but it's rubbish.

I would go to Ikea, but I will go mad and kill people.

I will drive Dad to the hospital in Taunton as no one else can. Other than that, Taunton can just disappear of the face of this flat earth for all I care.

What a crap town.

And I can't face a busy city (obvs not Taunton) with all those lights, noise and movement; somewhere dark and quiet is preferable.

I shall end up living in the woods in a hole.

So anyway,  I got my Ikea stuff delivered here. So much easier. 

New games stuff delivered too. Waiting impatiently for Kickstarter stuff to arrive. One book is 5 months late already.

IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!

Tourettes 

Shouting out occasionally. In the house, in the street and while walking Tomos.

'NO!' Telling a memory to stop.

'MY BOTTOM SMELLS!' Is there a bottom that doesn't smell, occasionally?

'BUTTS!' More obsession with arses.

'MY WINKLE IS SUPER!' I'm trying to pep myself up here.

Give me a break.

Moaning about shit. Well it is January.

Memories of a failed radical

If art college wasn't bad enough I went back a second time. This time just for one year in 2006, to do photography. It was actually one of the best courses I did as we were taught (shock horror!)...SKILLS.

This kind of learning suits me anyway. This is a Mamiya RZ67. This is how it works. This is how you put film in. This is how you take film out. Go and hire one and have some fun.

Thing is, I was 37 when I started that course. I think the age range was about 21 to late 50s. Made a lot of friends there.

There were some 'types' there. Some really talented snappers actually. I did it for a while but just ended up doing corporate events and that's not where I wanted to go.

One guy was an archetypal radical. He was about 24 - his dad was a senior person in the EU and his kids got free and unlimited education throughout Europe. That's a thing. 

Pete had a house and cameras which his dad gave him. He'd hang around the student bar. Us oldies would buy a couple of rounds. 

"Pete - your round. Pete?"

He was either nowhere to be seen or he'd shout:

"I DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY!!" 

But u have a house and 8 cameras. Why don’t you get a part time job?

"What and give in to the bourgeois hegemony and exploitation of the proletariat? Fuck off!"

He didn't actually say that bit. But words to that effect. He reminded me of Reggie Perrin's son - too lazy to get a job, always moaning at his father's selling-out and then asking for a loan to keep himself going.

This guy was a professional student. 

The house owning euro-student. 

A stereotyped middle-classed armchair radical.

The nearly arrested. 

Nearly martyred.

Nearly revolutionary. 

The fully trust-funded.

A typical walk with the dog

Snippets of life played back to me on random every morning. No chronology - and the links from one to the other are probably too embedded in my unconscious to ever know.

I'm a toddler at Bristol zoo. A giraffe cranes its neck down to examine me; its face in mine as I'm being carried. I burst out crying at the innocent animal as it invades my personal space.

Crossing Cenarth falls - I'm scared but my Dad's hand is there. It's so sunny and deafening with the crashing water.

After tobogganing my wellies are full of snow and my feet are freezing. I'm crying in pain. Why can't I have snowboots?

Charles Hawtrey as Private Dibble. Terry Scott admonishing him.

"It keeps my dangler warm!"

Random snippets of comedy sketches in my head. Harry Enfield saying "Faster you bitch!"

Fish and chips. Extra scraps please. Looks awful tbh.

Tan Ford Cortinas with a brown vinyl roof and square lights. 2000E. Coolest car ever.

Sexier than a Chrysler Avenger or a (splutters...) Vauxhall Viva!

Me copying Richard Ireland as he does the penny organ round the classroom and thinking I'm just as funny.  No one laughs.

Blue Tupperware full of old pennies.

Mint gravy with a cube of chocolate sponge. Yum!

Oooh, you little minx!

Hotwheels Racers.

Matchbox cars.

Corgi cars.

Dinky....toys?

Plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Crunching through the crisp grass on frozen mud in the shade of a hedgerow. Not a cloud in the sky: long shadows and golden, blinding light.. 

Oh! I'm back in the real world. 

(Pat myself on the shoulder for being back in the present moment. Thank you Mindfulness!) 

Tomos is over there.

No one's around. Fairweather dog walkers.

Grumble. In the distance I hear:

"Willowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillowwillow.'

Some miserable Uncle Monty-alike in Nigel Farage burgundy cords bellowing at his dog who is 200 metres away and understandably ignoring him. 

Also can't believe his dog is a Saluki - you'd think it would be a pug or a bulldog.

Damn. Was that monologue in my head or broadcast? 

I see an obviously schizophrenic man talking to himself. At least we have strength in numbers.

Pleasant small-talk with multiple dog owners. Can they tell I'm a demented?

Tomos loves me.

Lower your expectations

I'm sure I've let people down. I know I've let people down. I've also helped a lot of people too. 

It's nice when people acknowledge it. It's very nice when it's reciprocated, or you get a gift.

But since I've retired I've passed jobs on and got nothing back. I'm stopping as of now. These jobs were worth thousands.

I realise people help me. Tolerate me. My Dad is the most generous person I know. He's helped hundreds of kids get jobs, driven people to airports (even if they didn't want to go) and used to cut the grass for the neighbours, amongst myriad other things.

In short he'd go out of his way to help people he barely knew. 

Then he got too old and there was the pandemic and lockdown. 

The grass-cutting wasn't reciprocated.

Back in the day that would have been socially unacceptable - that would have set tongues wagging. But the pendulum has swung the other way.

You do a good turn - like when I had the van and a neighbour asked if I could deliver a couch to her son in Chelsea. Yup - gave up my Sunday morning to do that. 

"Oh you must come round for dinner."

Well, lucky I didn't hold my breath.

It's easy to blame Margaret Thatcher for the selfishness phenomenon, but it was the 1970s (when I was a kid) that was known as the 'selfish' decade. Of course I was too young to notice. It must have been a cultural offshoot from the hippy movement - a movement I felt kinship with in my youth but one I've come to despise. 

Proto-eloi most of them.

Anyway, 40 -50 years ago everyone on our road - and probably your road - knew each other. 

That's a distant memory now. 

People started to put up their barriers and isolate themselves from everyone else. Buy a property, do it up so it's almost unrecognisable, put gates and high fences everywhere to keep out the zombie hoards but only the hedgehogs were affected.

After the country of Iceland became bankrupt I listened to a documentary about it on Radio 4. Icelanders observed that when neighbours became super-rich they isolated themselves, and that a good thing about being poorer is that people were at least talking to each other again.

People are just selfish.

If we acknowledge that we should lower our expectations.